2016 #24 Golden Letters {by Alison Bomber}

 2016 Topic 24: Mail Art

Hello all, it's Alison here from Words and Pictures.  I've not managed to put in much of an appearance here at PaperArtsy this year, so I'm delighted to be able to offer up some inspiration for the Mail Art theme... an appropriate topic since I've been dashing all over the place this year, but I'm afraid I haven't been sending anything this arty home to friends and family!

I sort of had a vision in my head of letters being sent from a very exotic location - "the golden towers of Samarkand" was the phrase which kept wandering around my brain - so that's what I was trying to capture on my envelope... which ended up being three envelopes with different levels of golden experimentation!

I started with some simple smooshing and dipping with Distress Inks.  As you can see, my envelopes were made of pretty cheap paper, wrinkling up with the moisture, which caused a couple of hiccups as things progressed.

My golden towers are formed by the fabulously detailed Lynne Perrella stamp from LPC012, and I've used postage-themed stamps from LPC026 and LPC030 too.

 LPC012, 

LPC026

LPC030

My first idea for golden-ness was to use some gilding flakes.  Overall, I'm pretty impressed by the detail the flakes got me... I was thinking it might be more along the lines of a silhouette, but with some careful scrubbing with the special foam you get all those lovely arches and windows coming through.

Next, I thought I'd go for some embossing powder.  I could have sworn I had some fine detail gold powder, but I couldn't track it down, so this is the standard Queen's Gold by Ranger, used over Versamark stamping.  Love the texture of this and (as you'll see later) the fabulous shimmer in the sunlight.

Finally, just for a comparison really, I went for a plain ink stamping - your slightly rustier gold - done in Sepia with touches of Coffee to darken the edges and add some extra depth in places.  There's not much doubt about which one wins on detail, but I'm not sure it wins on the magical gilding front!

I layered in some more Lynne Perrella stamps, focussing on ones with a postage theme. So you have the lovely woman on her tiny script-adorned envelope from LPC026, hovering subtly in the background, stamped in first and second stampings of French Ultramarine Archival on each envelope.  And there are multiple stampings of the postmark stamp from  LPC012 too, sometimes in Olive, sometimes in French Ultramarine.

And since mail art isn't really mail art until it's been stamped and addressed, I've used Olive Archival with one of the gorgeous postage stamp images from LPC030 on the top right of each envelope, and added handwritten address directions which keep the options very much open and in the realm of the fantastical.

The backs feature the same postage stamp image over the dappled ink, and I've edged all the way around with Coffee Archival for extra definition.  I had to press the envelopes overnight which got rid of some of the wrinkles, but they definitely still have a distressed look to them.

As promised, I'm finishing with a couple of shots of the most golden pair shimmering in the sunlight.  It really is quite a magical effect though, as usual, hard to capture on camera.

Thanks so much for stopping by today.  Let me know which of the gilding methods you prefer.  I did try a stamping with White Fire Fresco paint too but, although it was lovely, it was too pale to show up properly over the blue-green inks.  I might give that a go on a kraft envelope to see what I get.  I'll just carry on playing!  I hope you'll also be inspired to play with some mail art this fortnight.

Thanks so much for dropping in today, and do come and see me over at 
Words and Pictures and on
Pinterest too.

Alison x

Great to see you again Alison, fabulous cards, those shimmering areas look beautiful. A few wrinkles add more character, I keep telling myself that haha! The Lynne Perrella stamps add a sort of authenticity to these correspondence pieces. Great to see your experiments with gilding and embossing. ~ Leandra

All of our bloggers love to see your twist on their ideas,  particularly if you were inspired directly by their post; so please spare a moment to comment or make your own creative item. They all love to see your feedback and what you can do more than you realise!

We would love to see how you interpret this Mail Art topic by linking what you make to our 2016 Challenge #24: Mail Art on this page HERE. The Mail Art link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, Dec 18th  2016. The winner will be announced 2  hours later at 19:00.

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